The Watcher (Joe Charbanic, 2000): 1/5

Boy if this ain’t the 2000siest movie to have ever 2000ed. (It starts with Keanu Reeves dancing slo-mo to Rob Zombie’s Dragula, which btw: you don’t start a show with a showstopper).

A formulaic serial killer thriller, with a subpar and bland performance by James Spader and everyone else involved, poorly written dialogue, and hilarious early-2000s low frame rate slow motion video editing and directing. Terrible.

Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019): 3/5 

Old school masculinity with market capitalism - it's SPEED RACER for dads. 

Ema (Pablo Larrain, 2019): 3.5/5

Chaotic evil. Feels like Gaspar Noe’s LOVE fused with an over dramatic telenovela. Some things work, some things don’t, but the soundtrack, visuals, and choreography make it an engrossing watch.

rewatched Morocco (Josef von Sternberg, 1930): 1.5/5
A couple of things: 

1) Saw this way the hell back in the mid 2000s - couldn't recall shit except for Dietrich's scene in the tux. (Great, as advertised.)

2) What in the world was Josef von Sternberg thinking. The camerawork is awful. It's just mid-range set up after mid-range set up, so faces are really vague and hard to read. And he keeps shooting through things that are really distracting - the wire frame in Dietrich's dressing room, and there's an early scene where the actor's face (in mid-range) is almost completely obstructed by a hanging wicker something or other in the foreground. Just really bad, inattentive framing of scenes.

3) I just can't get over what an absolute dolt Gary Cooper is. it's hard to be invested in Dietrich's motivations to pursue a man with few admirable qualities. I don't get it. He sucks ass. Replace Cooper with Cary Grant and this would be amazing.

In Vanda's Room (Pedro Costa, 2000): 2.5/5

Camcorder Caravaggio. And imagine if you will, Jeanne Dielman, except she chases the dragon.

The Peanut Butter Falcon (Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, 2019): 2/5

Narrative is quirky-indie boilerplate. Yeah, there's heart, but throughout the movie I never ever felt glued to the screen. It's kind of hit-and-miss; hit-and-miss material where I did enjoy some aspects, and many others absolutely freaking not.

rewatched High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963): 5/5

Haven't seen this in ~13 years and retained no memory whatsoever of the tour de force sequence in which the kidnapper stakes out a guinea-pig junkie in the midst of what appears to be the Japanese equivalent of Carnival. 

rewatched Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941): 5/5

This time I'm more hugely impressed by it than deeply moved.

First Love (Takashi Miike, 2019): 3/5

Romantic crime thriller about a dying boxer who rescues a prostitute, then gets unintentionally mixed up in Triad/Yakuza shenanigans. Coke flies, blood sprays, heads roll, and a booby trap animatronic shiba “arfs”. It's a decent time at the movies. You just have to make it through a sluggishly expository initial half-hour.

Lions Love (Agnes Varda, 1969): 2.5/5

Varda's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. A misfire, and the three leads are nigh on insufferable.

Sleepaway Camp (Robert Hiltzik, 1983): 2.5/5

Pretty decent mystery with an uncomfortably knotty, problematic final twist. SCREAM owes a chunk, largely for adopting convincingly cynical depiction of the way kids actually treat each other. Here that's helped along by some (amusingly clunky) for-once-age-appropriate teenage actors. On the other hand, while obviously nobody's super invested in seeing the graphic on-screen slaughter of actual fourteen-year-olds, this isn't graphic enough by half.

Don't Knock Twice (Caradog W. James, 2016): 1/5

Don't watch once.

The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo, 2018): 2.5/5

what type of mia farrow shit...

The Little Hours (Jeff Baena, 2017): 1.5/5

if you're making a one-joke movie the one joke has to be funny

The Man Who Fell To Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976): 2/5

Might have rolled with the distance and vagueness better were I more receptive to Roeg's elliptical style, but he's the most severely dated filmmaker I can think of offhand, employing a combination of zooms, dissolves, jump cuts and associative editing that screams 1970's in the same unflattering way as bellbottoms and feathered hair.

Little Joe (Jessica Hausner, 2019): 2/5

The movie basically has nowhere to go after about 45 minutes and just keeps serving up minute variations on Really Happening vs. All In Her Head.

rewatched Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012): 5/5

My favorite Baumbach - so damn charming. Frances is undoubtedly Gerwig's creation. So many things I love: the unique mood of depressed effervescence, killer dialogue, Frances offering "well, I guess I should go" with the clear expectation of being contradicted, only to receive detailed directions to the nearest subway station; the repeated use of "ahoy, sexy!", Gerwig joyously running through the streets of New York City. MICKEY SUMNER.

Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodovar, 2019): 3/5

During one of the scenes when he was a kid I literally thought to myself "What if this is just some random other kid and not actually him?" AND SHIT I WAS KINDA RIGHT

rewatched The Chocolate War (Keith Gordon, 1988): 3/5

Mostly faithful adaptation of Robert Cormier's classic YA novel (a favorite of mine back in grade school) with strong New Wave soundtrack featuring Yaz, Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush as well as intentionally gray, muted visuals and terrific performances. Ilan Mitchell-Smith is appropriately understated as the lead. John Glover really excels as the school's supercilious assistant headmaster, adding interesting layers of panic and perversity to a character who would otherwise exist solely as a blunt instrument.

Sharknado (Anthony C. Ferrante, 2013): 0.5/5

Notable quotes:

"he must've wanted a snack" - guy from tasmania

"that's what you get for tryna eat me" - guy from tasmania

"these fish surely do have a hankering for me" - guy from tasmania

*huge wave about to hit the guy* "oh craaap!"

*sharks attacking him* "ow!" - drunk guy

"i hate sharks, i'm from wyoming!" - hippie teacher guy

"oh crap, look at all those sharks!" - the hot girl

Girl on the Third Floor (Travis Stevens, 2019): 1/5

Lemme break this down for you:

You've got about 30 minutes of Tattoos McGee doing home repairs and making Skype calls.

You've got about 30 minutes of chatting with the locals.

And then you've got about 30 minutes of an actual horror movie, which is just OK.

The Dinner (Oren Moverman, 2017): 0.5/5

Horrible White People: The Movie

Fundamentally terrible. When you think of every problem a screenplay could have in terms of character, this has it. There's no motivation, little character building, bizarre structure, missing objectives... everything. There's no overlying theme or goal or tone to hold the film together; it's almost incoherent at times.

Basically a bunch of rich, white assholes I'm supposed to care about discuss what to do about their misguided, privileged, criminal children over a bazillion dollar four course meal that director Oren Moverman pointlessly uses as chapter breaks for what is easily the most pretentious, unnecessary, out of touch film.

Always at the Carlyle (Matthew Miele, 2018): 1.5/5

PR fluff piece for the shareholder’s meeting. Who the fuck cares.

Synonyms (Nadav Lapid, 2019): 1.5/5

The character Yoav is too weird and unlikable for the viewer to care about and his exploits are largely a chore to sit through.The viewing experience ranges from dull to awkward and there's little to enjoy or be entertained by. Labeled as anything from drama to sociopolitical satire, it explores masculinity, it shocks with nudity, it deals with identity, and it does all of that in an unappealing way.

If Nadav Lapid cared as half much about narrative and thematic cohesion as he does about indecorously large penises, he might’ve been able to scrape together a good movie.

The Platform (Galder Gatzelu-Urrutia, 2019): 2.5/5

The Platform is just about what you’d expect. Nothing too original and totally on the nose. Obvious comparisons can be made to other films with similar concepts and themes. Extra half star for the score - a lot of it is made to sound like it was played with kitchen utensils, so that’s pretty cool.